The first rule of successful bullying is "don't pick on someone who is able to fight back."
President Donald Trump, who does have some experience in this area, seems to have forgotten
that, since he decided this weekend to take on athletes and sports executives who have thick
skin, money, and a public platform that is arguably equal in reach to The Donald's.

Trump's first foray into this area came on Friday, when he
decided,
during a speech in Alabama, to slam NFL players who "disrespect our flag." The President got a pretty
good response with that one, and he's clearly gotten his cell phone back from Chief of Staff John Kelly,
so he decided to double down on Saturday:

If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL,or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect....

While he was at it, Trump also decided to take on the NBA's Stephen Curry, whose
Golden State Warriors were going to meet this weekend and discuss whether to make the traditional
championship visit to the White House:

Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team.Stephen Curry is hesitating,therefore invitation is withdrawn!

There may literally be no worse way to word this. If Trump claimed that no
invitation was offered, then at least he could say he technically wasn't
snubbed. Or, if he waited until the Warriors officially told him "no thanks,"
then at least he could argue they were being rude or childish. But by confirming
that the invitation was out there, and then preemptively yanking it, Trump has
made clear that he was indeed snubbed, and then responded in a rude and childish
fashion. One begins to wonder if Trump has ever taken the high road in his
entire life.

Now, as we noted yesterday, it's not much of a surprise that Trump waded into
this particular corner of the culture wars, as this subject touches on a lot of
hot-button issues for his base. Perhaps the most important one of those, however, is
race. As CNN's Chris Cillizza
points out,
Trump is blowing enough dog whistles here that the
Willie Horton ad
of 1988 is starting to look kind of tame by comparison. The owners of the
league's sports teams are overwhelmingly white (with former NBA star Michael
Jordan the only black majority owner among the United States' three major sports
leagues). Meanwhile, a majority of the players in the NFL and NBA are black (70%
and 77%, respectively). All this talk of the "privilege" of playing in the
leagues, and how (mostly black) players should stay in their lane, and how
(mostly white) owners should exert control over players who fail to do so is not
much different than when Ronald Reagan railed against lazy "welfare queens." In
fact, it's not so different from the verbiage of Southern segregationists during
the Civil Rights movement, who said that black folks should just be happy with
what they have. It also means that Trump has now had stronger words for the
(mostly black) athletes of the NFL and NBA than he had for the (entirely) white
supremacists of Charlottesville.

Again, Trump's mistake here is that he chose targets with the ability to fight back.
And the response has been swift. The Warriors, who apparently are
familiar with the high road,
issued
a statement:

In lieu of a visit to the White House, we have decided that we'll constructively
use our trip to the nation's capital in February to celebrate equality,
diversity and inclusion—the values that we embrace as an organization.

Meanwhile, individual players on the team spoke out, with Curry
noting
that the whole situation is "surreal," while wondering, "why he feels the need to target certain individuals, rather than others,"
and opining that, "That's not what leaders do." Many of the Warriors' NBA brethren also
sounded off, most notably superstar Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James:

U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain't going! So therefore ain't no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!

We know that Trump is obsessed with ratings and other measurables, so he will
presumably be very unhappy to be attacked by James, whose 38.4 million Twitter followers
barely trail Trump's 39 million (and, when fake accounts are discounted, James actually
leads Trump). Even unhappier for the President is that James' tweet has already been
liked 1.2 million times, while Trump's
best
number is a little over 600,000.

And it wasn't just the NBA that fired back at the President. MLB catcher Bruce Maxwell
became
the first baseball player to take a knee at a game; a bold move for a famously
conservative sport. Maxwell, who is black, comes from a military family, and is
well known for his patriotic feeling. On Saturday, he placed his hat over his
heart and looked at the American flag as he kneeled, so there was zero question
that the gesture was meant specifically for Trump. And in case there was any
doubt, Maxwell made his views clear via Twitter:

Inequality is being displayed bigger than ever right now as our president shows that freeedom of protest and speech is not allowed..

The protest also appears to have reached the college ranks, as NCAA men's
basketball champion North Carolina
announced
Saturday that due to "scheduling issues" they will forego their White House visit, as well.

Arguably the loudest response, however, came from the direction of the NFL, which had
dozens of players speak up.
Selected examples, from
Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, Bills running back LeSean McCoy, and Lions tight end
Eric Ebron:

The behavior of the President is unacceptable and needs to be addressed. If you do not Condemn this divisive Rhetoric you are Condoning it!!

But at least the NFL's owners were with Trump, right? Not so much. A dozen of
them have
issued
statements opposing his comments. "President Trump's remarks were divisive
and disrespectful to the entire NFL community," said Buffalo Bills Owners Terry
and Kim Pegula, while Packers CEO Mark Murphy lamented that, "It's unfortunate
that the president decided to use his immense platform to make divisive and
offensive statements about our players and the NFL," and San Francisco 49ers CEO
Jed York declared that, "The callous and offensive comments made by the
president are contradictory to what this great country stands for." NFL
Commissioner Roger Goodell, who doesn't do anything unless he thinks he's got
the support of the great majority of owners (aka his bosses), also
produced
a statement, in which he said, "Divisive comments like these demonstrate an
unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players,
and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and
players represent in our communities."

This is going to be a big story for at least another day or two, and very
possibly for much longer than that. First, because it is unlikely that Trump is
going to let the matter drop. By the time the sun rises in D.C., there is every
chance of a tweetstorm originating from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Actually,
it already started Saturday night, presumably right before Trump had his
bedtime cocoa:

Roger Goodell of NFL just put out a statement trying to justify the total disrespect certain players show to our country.Tell them to stand!

Beyond that, today is NFL football day, which means that Sherman, McCoy, et al.
are going to have the nation's attention (and better ratings than "The Apprentice" ever got).
There have been
calls
for every NFL player to take a knee before today's games. Some of them surely
will, and it is very possible many of them will. Maybe even all of them. Well,
not Tom Brady. But no matter what happens, people will be talking about it on
Monday. (Z)

Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un have maintained their intercontinental pissing
contest throughout this week, with Trump threatening North Korea before the
United Nations (Monday), and then Kim
calling
Trump a "frightened dog" (Wednesday), then Trump threatening Kim again (Thursday), and then Kim
blasting
Trump as a "mentally deranged U.S. dotard" (senile old man) and promising to
detonate a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean (Friday). Trump may or may not know what a
dotard is, but he certainly can't let something like that pass either way, so he
returned fire via Twitter on Saturday:

Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer!

First of all, the "Rocket Man" bit was corny on its first usage. Now in its
sixth day, it's only going downhill. Meanwhile, Trump is undoubtedly the only
president in U.S. history to blithely threaten the slaughter of 25 million people
without a second thought.

In any event, a new
poll
suggests that this kind of posturing may not be the political winner that Trump thinks it is.
Only 37% of Americans trust Trump to handle the rogue nation, while 72% trust America's military
leaders. Only 23% favor a preemptive strike against Kim, while more than two-thirds oppose.
75% think that economic sanctions should be the administration's primary course
of action. It is clear that much of the base likes the saber-rattling, and they may be all that matter,
though even among them, it there is evidence they prefer the President rely on economic sanctions and
his military advisors, as opposed to, say, Twitter. (Z)

Hurricane Harvey hit Texas and Louisiana very hard, and Hurricane Irma did the same to
Florida. However, the hardest-hit place in America is almost certainly Puerto Rico,
which has been
devastated
by Hurricane Maria (with an assist from Irma). The entire island has lost power, which may not be restored for months.
Potable drinking water is in short supply. In some cities, 90% of the homes have been leveled.

After Harvey, Donald Trump was in Texas on the ground twice, and moved quickly to secure
funding for the victims. After Irma, he went to Florida once, and also threw his weight
behind emergency relief. With Maria, by contrast, the President proclaimed Puerto Rico
a disaster area four days ago and then...nothing. No visit, no money, no meaningful support
of any sort so far. His silence has been particularly noticeable, given how much time he's
found to talk about, say, what NFL players should be doing.

What is the difference between the three situations? After all, the people in all three places
are all U.S. citizens. It's true that Puerto Ricans can't vote (at least, not when they are on the island),
and it's true that Florida is a swing state, but Texas is as red as it gets, as is Louisiana. So, this
doesn't seem to be about vote-getting. Is the President suffering from hurricane fatigue? Maybe. Or,
is it more that he cares when white folks suffer, but not so much when brown folks do? That is certainly
how it looks to many; the left-leaning Daily Beast has gone so far as to describe Maria as Trump's
Hurricane Katrina.
Could be; certainly the optics aren't very good. On the other hand, maybe distracting attention from
Puerto Rico is why he's taking potshots at the NFL. (Z)

Speaking of distractions, Donald Trump has a tax problem. Namely that he wants to give money
back to rich people, but his base is made up of a large number of not-so-rich people. His ideal
situation (and the ideal situation for the GOP in general) is to slide the tax cut in under the radar.
The rich folks will know they're paying less, and hopefully the poorer folks will be none the wiser.
This being the case, it's possible that all the NFL talk and NBA talk is a strategy to deflect attention from his
tax plan,
which began to come into focus on Saturday.

According to reports from GOP insiders, the current plan is to reduce the number of tax brackets
from seven to three, to slash the top rate from 39.6% to 35%, and to cut the rate on small businesses from
35% to 20%. The complete plan is expected to be unveiled Wednesday. If the details
that leaked on Saturday are correct, then the Democrats and the House Freedom Caucus are going to
be "no" votes, since each of those two factions has deal breakers that the Trump plan does not accommodate.
The only thing we can really say for certain is that, very soon, Trump is going to learn that repealing
Obamacare is a snap compared to changing the tax code. (Z)

Speaking of the Obamacare repeal, it is—like Jason Voorhees, or a cat on life number
seven, or velour track suits—not quite dead yet, despite what you might have heard.
Although Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) are clearly unhappy with the
Cassidy-Graham-Heller-Johnson (CGHJ) health-care bill, neither has quite pulled a Full Sherman
when it comes to stating their intention to vote "no."

This being the case, efforts to tweak the bill
are ongoing
in an effort to somehow get those senators' votes. In fact, Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are even taking a shot at getting Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), because why not?
The only "no" they do not appear to be pursuing is Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). At the same time
that the senators work behind the scenes, Donald Trump is putting his Twitter skills to use,
trying to put pressure on the trio—Murkowski, in particular. The drop dead date in Saturday
which, depending on how much one cares about "normal order," is either an impossibly short
timeframe, or else plenty of time. (Z)

Donald Trump would like the interim tag to be removed from before Sen. Luther
Strange's (R-AL) name, since the President knows that the Senator follows the
party line faithfully when he votes, while a loose cannon like Roy Moore may
not do so. That said, there's nothing Trump dislikes more than being associated with a
"loser," and polls suggest that Strange is about to become one. And so, while
the President campaigns for Strange, he's also begun to
hedge his bets.
During his speech in Alabama on Friday, Trump told the crowd, "I'll be honest, I
might have made a mistake [in backing Strange]." The Donald also claimed that, even if
Strange loses, his support has allowed the Senator to make up a 25-point gap in a manner of
weeks. This is nonsense; Strange has never trailed by anything close to
that, and besides, polls
make clear
that only 20% of Alabama GOP voters are considering Trump's opinion as they make
their choice.

The upshot is that Trump knows his candidate is likely to lose, and may lose bigly.
That will look bad for the president, first because of his general disdain for losing,
and also because it will deprive him of much political capital (from an already rapidly-dwindling
supply). "You don't need Trump to win elections," will be the lesson for 2018 candidates,
and many of them may become less enthusiastic in supporting him. In view of all of this, it's not a surprise
that Trump is distancing himself from Strange. As the Washington Post's Avi Selk and Amy B. Wang
point out,
preemptive strikes of this sort are common for The Donald. His preemptive disinvite of
the Golden State warriors (see above), his dissolution of his two CEO councils, his decision
not to attend the Kennedy Center honors or White House Correspondents dinner—all were clearly
calculated to spare the President from embarrassment. It's not surprising that a politician
should do this, particularly one as image-conscious as Trump, but it does make clear that
no matter how he might posture, The Donald is well aware that he's not nearly as popular
as he pretends he is. (Z)

On Thursday, new FBI director Christopher Wray will be installed. It is customary for the sitting president
to attend the ceremony, along with all living former FBI directors. This raises the distinct
possibility
that Donald Trump, James Comey, and Robert Mueller will all end up in the same room together.

None of the three men have, as yet, confirmed their attendance. All three are local, though; Trump and Mueller
due to their current employment by the federal government, and Comey due to his year-long appointment to
the faculty of Howard University. It would be something of a snub for Trump to skip the ceremony, especially
given that his relationship with the FBI is already quite rocky. On the other hand, for all his bluster,
he actually hates awkward interpersonal conflict. Likely, he will hope that Mueller and Comey decide they have
something better to do, and—if they do not opt out—then he will find a convenient reason
he simply cannot be present on Thursday. Perhaps there's a ribbon at a Wal-Mart grand opening that
simply must be cut by a president. (Z)